Ash guides Ander as he mind-controls the Batship Crazy along, ever toward APPOTHROMAX. The astral gem gets brighter. A conspicuous absence of further attacks suggests that Ash’s guidance is on fleek until a githyanki pirate ship pokes into their bubble ahead. Watc and Ander explode fireballs across the pirate deck while Sqyylarr and Ash man the ballistas. Barika settles for nothing less than a cannon as Ander turns to put the pirates into broadside. The flaming pirate ship, relieved of all its crew save the helmsman, attempts to grapple onto the Batship Crazy despite Ander’s offer to accept his surrender. Barika blasts the unheeding flaming pirate ship into flaming splinters and it falls away to the astral sea.
A cold vista opens off the port side as the ship’s bubble smooshes into the bubble of an icy land mass below. The piercing cold threatens to kill the party if they don’t find a way to survive, other than Barika who was raised by wolves in the cold Spine of the World mountain range; she is comfortable for the first time since leaving home. Ander fortuitously locates a chest full of winter weather gear in the hold of the Batship Crazy and distributes it to the others. Watc pops the astral gem out of the astral throne so that joyriding pirates may not abscond with the ship. Charlie Company, drained from the journey, rests up for the day ahead.
Sqyylarr pilots the landing party down to the edge of a frozen lake in the captured Githyanki ship and lands at the only visible landmark of any interest, a frozen river mouth that wends into a cave. Blowing snow obscures the senses and slows progress. The party disembarks and begins the trek toward the cave mouth. Snow drifts along the cliff-faced edges of the path conceal mammoth skeletons that pop out and attempt to stomp them. Sqyylarr discovers an extreme talent for obliterating mammoth skeletons with triple-crushing Smash. Slashing Barika must work a lot harder at it, but still gets a fair bit of damage in. Ander and Watc conserve their efforts by phoning in some firebolts while Sqyylarr gleefully litters the icy ground with spinning bone splinters.
Sqyylarr loots a frost giant dagger from a pouch worn by one of the fallen mammoths. [+1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. On a hit, +1d8 cold damage. Huge-sized weapon, wieldable by medium creature as a heavy, two-handed martial weapon that deals 3d4 piercing damage.] Up ahead, the icy, rocky ceiling caves in on Watc.
Ash scouts ahead and decides on a right fork in the path toward a second cave mouth. A quad squad of elite skeletons amble around at the transition. The two parties share the space peacefully for a few moments. Barika approaches to greet them and then steps aways as a ruse to learn whether they will opportunistically greatsword her in the back. They do. She greataxes them in the front. Watc fireballs the skeletons, softening the targets for Ash’s prey slaying, Sqyylarr’s frost daggering, Ander’s ray scorching, and Barika’s great axing.